‘Half the GPU overhead’ with ‘comparable visual fidelity’: Nvidia dramatically improves DLSS 5, which is great, but gamers want it on more GPUs
- Nvidia has significantly improved the AI model for DLSS 5
- This means the technology now offers up to 40% faster frame rates.
- Team Green has also improved frame generation and will bring DLSS 5 to two new games: Hogwarts Legacy and Where the winds meet
If you were wondering when Nvidia might start improving DLSS 5 performance, the answer is that it just happened.
Team Green’s neural rendering technology, which officially debuted in NBA 2K27It’s only been available for a little over a month, but Nvidia claims it has doubled the performance of the AI that powers DLSS 5.
When it was first introduced in March 2026, DLSS 5 required a pair of RTX 5090 GPUs to run, and the company improved AI model performance 5x for the technology’s launch in NBA 2K27. With this latest update, it now has 10x the performance of the baseline.
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Nvidia also made it clear that it has significantly reduced the technology’s video memory (VRAM) usage, noting that: “The October 5 DLSS update reduces the [AI model] footprint by 24% to approximately 118 million parameters while reducing 4K VRAM usage by 20%. The result is half of September’s GPU overhead. [launch] version while maintaining comparable visual fidelity.”
Based on Nvidia testing in NBA 2K27that translates to frame rate increases on the order of 30% to 40%. Watch the video clip below to see the winnings in the basketball game.
This new DLSS 5 model launches on October 16 and is available for RTX 5000 GPUs, RTX Spark laptops, and the GeForce Now streaming service.
Nvidia also announced that DLSS 5 will be introduced for Hogwarts Legacy on November 5, and also Where the winds meet in the “near future”, although in the latter case no specific release date is given.
Finally, far from DLSS 5, Nvidia announced that it will incorporate a new performance mode for frame generation, which will considerably speed up the technology. The company explains that this benefits from a “faster, lighter algorithm” that further increases the frame rate and will deliver up to 35% better frame rates with an RTX 5060.
This performance mode is called ‘Preset C’ in the Nvidia app frame override.
DLSS 5 is also coming to RTX Remix on October 23, meaning older games can be given a graphical makeover with additional neural rendering goodness. That only makes sense. since gamers have been manipulating support (in various ways) with classic PC games anyway.
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Analysis: a laudable step forward, but players want more
It’s remarkable to see DLSS 5 performance increase so quickly, although Nvidia needed to act on this. One of the main criticisms of this technology has been that the performance impact is too considerable and requires a powerful RTX 5000 GPU to run smoothly enough, at a time when prices for these types of graphics cards are rapidly becoming more expensive.
That said, an increasing number of gamers seem to be accepting that DLSS 5 is worth the visual improvement in terms of frame rate. Those people will no doubt be pleased with Nvidia’s progress here and probably won’t disagree with Team Green’s claim in their blog post that 2026 has been a “year of relentless DLSS innovation.”
Of course, there are still skeptics who would prefer Nvidia not to incorporate AI in this way with DLSS. And it’s also true that these early optimizations are where the biggest gains will be made, and as the AI model is further refined, the performance improvements are likely to be much more modest.
There are also gamers wondering if, now that the AI model has greatly improved, this will usher in broader support for older Nvidia graphics cards. As this Redditor put it: “Great, could we get official support on the [RTX] 40 now that the new model is so efficient?”
It’s a good question, given that Nvidia has promised that after fine-tuning the performance of the RTX 5000, it will work to support the next-gen RTX 4000 range. Although I guess this won’t happen until early next year.
The other work on DLSS frame generation is also welcome, although the new ‘Preset C’ option has attracted some criticism for causing a bit more glitches and artifacts while increasing the frame rate by a decent amount. Not everyone sees this, of course, and how obvious it is may reportedly be somewhat subjective (and could obviously also depend on the specific game).
In any case, this preset should be useful for laptop gamers looking to push frame rates even higher with relatively modest Nvidia GPUs, and in fact, it’s likely tied to the launch of RTX Spark laptops to improve their gaming skills.
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